The Fair Work Ombudsman has reported that it has recovered more than $532 million in backpayments for 384,805 underpaid workers in 2021-22 – a record sum of back-paid wages and entitlements for a record number of employees.
This is according to the FWO’s latest Annual Report, which states that more than half of the year’s recoveries came from large corporate employers, who back-paid nearly $279 million to more than 267,000 employees. This was six times the amount returned from large corporates in the previous financial year.
Overall, the recoveries are three times higher than the previous record recoveries in 2020-21, and more than quadruple that achieved in 2019-20.
Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker said the agency’s work throughout the years addressing underpayments in Australia’s large corporations had hit significant milestones in 2021-22.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman has created an environment that expects large corporates to prioritise compliance. Combined with stronger, targeted compliance and enforcement action across all our work, the result has been another record amount of wages back in workers’ pockets,” Parker said. “All employers must prioritise putting in place systems and getting the advice they need to ensure they are paying workers their lawful entitlements. Those who are doing the wrong thing, including large corporates, are being found out – and we don’t hesitate to take enforcement action where appropriate.”
In 2021-22, the FWO took on two of Australia’s largest employers to court: the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Coles Supermarkets. Both matters are still before the Federal Court.
In total, there were 137 new litigations in 2021-22, 80 per cent more than the year before and the first time it has filed 100 and above litigations in a year.
In concluded cases, the agency secured about $2.7 million in court-ordered penalties, of which about $1.8 million were from matters involving exploited migrant workers. It also entered into nine Enforceable Undertakings with businesses, recovering $56.4 million for workers through extensive investigations and complex calculations that uncovered the full extent of underpayments.
The FWO issued 2345 Compliance Notices in 2021-22, with recoveries through these notices up 23 per cent in a year. Fair Work Inspectors also issued 492 Infringement Notices, with fines totalling $446,037, and has resolved 18,622 workplace disputes between workers and employers within the financial year.
The FWO’s websites had a record 27 million visits to access its information, while frontline staff answered nearly 350,000 customer enquiries through phone and digital channels.
Parker said she was proud of the support her agency had provided to workplaces as they recovered from the impacts of COVID-19, which was an overarching priority for the agency in 2021-22.
She also revealed the priorities of the FWO for financial year 2022-23, with ongoing pandemic recovery support, the fast food, restaurants and cafés sector, large corporates, the university sector, agriculture, sham contracting and contract cleaning the main areas of focus.
